Tony shook his head. “No; I wish I could,” he said.
“Still, you see, it doesn’t matter quite so much in his case. He leaves nobody to worry about it behind him, and had no prospects. He told me he was going out to try his fortune in another land, anyway.”
“It doesn’t matter! Is it nothing that he should go out with a brand of that kind upon him?”
“Well,” said Tony reflectively, “I really don’t think it counts for very much where he is going to. You see, they are not remarkably particular in America.”
Violet Wayne rose. “You are not in a pleasant mood tonight, Tony, and I am tired. We will not stay here and vex each other.”
Tony endeavored to slip his arm about her. “I know I’m a bad-tempered beast now and then. I can only tell you that you are ever so much too good for me again.”
The girl did very little to repulse him, in fact scarcely more than lift her eyes, but Tony’s arm fell to his side. Then she smiled somewhat curiously. “Don’t make too determined an effort to convince me,” she said. “I should not like to believe you.”
She went out, leaving Tony alone with a horror of himself. He realized that there could be no turning back now. He must go on by the path he had taken, and standing with hand clenched on the mantle he groaned a little.
[V — APPLEBY MAKES A FRIEND]
IT was blowing a moderate gale, and the “Aurania,” steaming at full speed into it, rolled viciously. A half-moon shone out low down beneath wisps of whirling cloud, and the big black seas shook their frothing crests high aloft against the silvery light as they swept in long succession out of the night. The steamer met them with dipping forecastle from which the spray blew aft in clouds, lurched and hove her streaming bows high above the froth, rolled until one rail seemed level with the sea, and slid down into the hollow, out of which her head swung slowly up to meet the onslaught of the next. Bitter spray was flying everywhere, her decks ran water; but it was only between foremast and forecastle head she shipped it in cascades, and little groups of passengers stood where they could find shelter. They had finished their dinner with some difficulty, and because the vessel rolled so that it was not an easy task to keep one’s seat or footing had found their attempts to amuse themselves below a waste of effort.